“Okay. Ground rules,” I said, and locked gazes with Eli. “I pee alone and I shower alone. Some things need to remain a mystery, and those are two I firmly believe in.”
“Given that you probably used to wear . . . velvet bloomers, lace, high heels, and a ponytail, yeah—I guess you have changed a little,” I said, and gave a slight smile in hopes of easing the depressing mood.Eli actually grinned. “That look was hot back then.” He held his arms out. “Velvet coat with tails to match. Yeah, ruffles, too. I was badass.”
“Poe, you wiener, get your ass over here!"
"Shut Up! I ain't a wiener!"
Broken, adolescent male laughter echoed through the night air, and if I hadn't been so damned mad, I'd have laughed too. Something about hearing a group of idiotic pubescent fifteen-year-old boys say wiener just cracked me up.”
“Mine,” he whispered against my mouth. He kissed me again. “You are mine.”
In the shadows I stared into the eyes of a vampire, grazed his mouth with my finger. “No, you‟re mine.”
“My Gullah grandfather is bringing a bag of dust to a vampire war. I feel better.”
“Like I said - I wasn't stupid. Rough around the edges maybe, definitely a little perverted at times, but never stupid. I was a survivor. I'd damn well survive this.”
“Good thing no one but the dead would see my hiniesca (high-nee-sca is a juvenile, made-up word for ass, and I use it frequently)”
“Whatever,” he mumbled, which again irritated me because we all know what whatever really meant. Eff you.”
“I thought I could bring you out here, talk to you, comfort you,” he said, his voice strained. He leaned closer. “But all I can think of is being inside of you.” He kissed me, dragged his lips
across my jaw, then back. “And staying inside of you,” he whispered against my lips. “I‟m comforted, so let‟s go,”
“His hand snapped shut over the device and then he crossed his arms. Aria stared in horror. Her Smarteye was buried in a Neanderthal’s armpit.”
“Yet Byron never made tea as you do, who fill the pot so that when you put the lid on the tea spills over. There is a brown pool on the table--it is running among your books and papers. Now you mop it up, clumsily, with your pocket-hankerchief. You then stuff your hankerchief back into your pocket--that is not Byron; that is so essentially you that if I think of you in twenty years' time, when we are both famous, gouty and intolerable, it will be by that scene: and if you are dead, I shall weep.”
“The lesson here is very simple. But it is striking how often it is overlooked. We are so caught in the myths of the best and the brightest and the self-made that we think outliers spring naturally from the earth. We look at the young Bill Gates and marvel that our world allowed that thirteen-year-old to become a fabulously successful entrepreneur. But that's the wrong lesson. Our world only allowed one thirteen-year-old unlimited access to a time sharing terminal in 1968. If a million teenagers had been given the same opportunity, how many more Microsofts would we have today?”
“Standing Here
My entire world far beneath
my feet, I should be filled
with pride. Instead, I feel
overwhelmed by a sense of defeat.
Suddenly it comes to me,
toes tempted to test the ledge,
that there is a way out of this.
Clam surety flows through
my veins, and as I turn to wave
good-bye, I wonder if it will
hurt or if a single person
will cry at my funeral.
I take a deep breath, a final
taste of sweet mountain air.
I conjure Leona, Emily.
Move my feet closer. Closer
There's Grandma One, Grandma
Two, and their spouses, waiting
for me. I see Dad. Cara. Mommy.
I screw up my courage, step over”
“We should acknowledge God merciful, but not always for us comprehensible.”
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